Olivier Shield show­down!

KC, CC clash for al­lis­land crown

Last week­end, Lud­low Bernard and Lenny Hyde added two cov­eted ti­tles to their coach­ing ré­sumés, when they led Kingston Col­lege (KC) and Claren­don Col­lege re­spec­tively, to the ISSA/Dig­i­cel Man­ning Cup and ISSA/WATA daCosta Cup ti­tles.

How­ever, only one of them will be able to claim na­tional school­boy foot­ball supremacy, with their heavy­weight teams set to clash this evening at 6:00 p.m. for the Olivier Shield at the Na­tional Sta­dium.

Bernard, who ended

KC’s 32-year wait to lift the Man­ning Cup ti­tle, ad­mit­ted that this match car­ries far less weight than the pres­sure he faced to de­liver the Man­ning Cup ti­tle to KC faith­ful. This, he hopes, will en­able his boys to freely dis­play their skill and class .

“There are no nerves ap­proach­ing this con­test,” Bernard told The Gleaner yes­ter­day.

MORE FREE­DOM

“There is a lot more free­dom with the nerves. I am a lot freer with the ap­proach. I think what has been re­lieved was the bur­den, and deal­ing with this one is a lot lighter, and as a re­sult, I ex­pect the boys to ex­press them­selves a lot more Satur­day evening,” Bernard said.

“The op­po­nent is very strong and for­mi­da­ble. I ex­pect it to be a very good and en­ter­tain­ing game. By no means will it be a walkover, but we will be blaz­ing from all guns, and I know they will be do­ing the same, but I ex­pect us to be vic­to­ri­ous.”

Hyde might have some­thing to say about that, and he cer­tainly has the mo­ti­va­tion – Olivier Shield ti­tle aside, con­sid­er­ing that he was un­cer­e­mo­ni­ously dis­missed by the North Street­based school three sea­sons ago. For what it’s worth, Hyde in­sists that this is not a vengeance match for him. “KC is a good team, and ‘Luddy’ (Bernard) is a good coach. This will not be a vengeance thing, I am good friends with Luddy and a lot of the play­ers. It will be a fun day, and may the best team win,” said Hyde. Hyde was part of the 1977 Claren­don Col­lege team, which won the daCosta Cup and Olivier Shield ti­tles un­der leg­endary coach Win­ston Chung- Fah, who re­cently passed.

“We have to ap­proach this very se­ri­ous. That’s what we did in ‘77, and we want to repli­cate that, so we are look­ing for­ward to it,” he said.

The last time KC won the Man­ning Cup prior to this sea­son, they also de­liv­ered the Olivier Shield ti­tle back in 1986. Claren­don Col­lege last lifted the shield in 1998 when it was shared with Dunoon Tech­ni­cal.